Meriwether Lewis: June 26, 1806

Thursday June 26th 1806. This morning we collected our horses and set out after an early breakfast or at 6 A.M. we passed by the same rout we had travelled on the 17th inst. to our deposit on the top of the snowey mountain to the N. E. of hungary Creek. here we necessarily halted about 2 hours to arrange our baggage and prepare our loads. we cooked and made a haisty meal of boiled venison and mush of cows. the snow has subsided near four feet since the 17 inst. we now measured it accurately and found from a mark which we had made on a tree when we were last here on the 17 that it was then 10 feet 10 inches which appeared to be about the common debth though it is deeper still in some places. it is now generally about 7 feet.

the indians haistened to be off, and informed us that it was a considerable distance to the place which they wished to reach this evening where there was grass for our horses. accordingly we set out with our guides who lead us over and along the steep sides of tremendious mountains entirely covered with snow except about the roots of the trees where the snow had sometimes melted and exposed a few square feet of the earth. late in the evening much to the satisfaction of ourselves and the comfort of our horses we arrived at the desired spot and encamped on the steep side of a mountain convenient to a good spring (having passed a few miles our camp of 18 Septr 1805). there we found an abundance of fine grass for our horses.

Source: Thwaites, Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1904–05). Public domain.